We’ve all benefited from extraordinary innovation in cloud computing: Elastic scale. Quick deployments. Global reach overnight.

But many technology and finance leaders are now asking a hard question: if cloud was designed to accelerate innovation and reduce cost, why does it increasingly feel like a trap?

For the last decade, cloud was sold as liberation: faster deployment, infinite scale, pay-as-you-go efficiency. It worked — until the economics, behaviors, and incentives of the hyperscalers shifted. Today, IT leaders must confront an uncomfortable truth: the cloud that once served as a strategic enabler has, in many cases, become a margin trap.